Check out what has been trimmed to fit the comic strip format,
maybe they will be collected in a book later (Christmas?!) and from the original art. We can hope.

Here’s the original painted pages for the Popeye’s Cartoon Club comic strip – published by @PopeyeTweetsk and @ComicsKingdom today as part of Popeye’s 90th birthday! This piece is huge – 24×36” ink and watercolor on paper.

]]>http://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2019/03/19/behind-the-scenes-popeyes-cartoon-club/feed/023486Mark Alan Stamaty Returns to MacDoodle St.http://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2019/03/19/mark-alan-stamaty-returns-to-macdoodle-st/
http://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2019/03/19/mark-alan-stamaty-returns-to-macdoodle-st/#respondWed, 20 Mar 2019 03:42:04 +0000http://www.dailycartoonist.com/?p=23478A new edition of the 1980 collection MacDoodle St. by Mark Alan Stamaty
is being released with an added 24 pages including

a brand-new, twenty-page autobiographical comic by Stamaty explaining what happened next and why MacDoodle St. never returned, in a unique, funny, and poignant look at the struggles and joys of being an artist.

When I started doing MacDoodle St., I had been doing children’s books mostly at that point and I wanted to really play with the form as loosely as I could. I wanted to innovate, I wanted to hopefully bring something to it that I hadn’t seen, that I didn’t know. So it was really like, this is a great form, what else can it be?

]]>http://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2019/03/18/2018-national-cartoonist-society-divisional-nominees/feed/423444Walking and Talking with Jerry Crafthttp://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2019/03/13/walking-and-talking-with-jerry-craft/
http://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2019/03/13/walking-and-talking-with-jerry-craft/#respondWed, 13 Mar 2019 06:06:27 +0000http://www.dailycartoonist.com/?p=23260Steve Sheinkin is an author of fiction and non-fiction works
and he is an illustrator of fiction and non-fiction works.
Sometimes he blends the fiction and non-fiction
and sometimes he blends the prose and the illustrations.

Anyway…

Steve also does graphic interviews with authors and illustrators,
which he calls Walking and Talking with…

JobsGraphic Designer, Marketing – OrbitOrbit is the science fiction and fantasy imprint of Hachette Book Group.
Working closely with the Orbit division’s marketing team, the Graphic Designer will be responsible for designing and producing advertising, promotional and sales materials for Orbit and Redhook, and contributing creatively to marketing campaign planning.Apply here.

Animation

Warner Bros. Animation’s new series of Looney Tunes shorts will debut on Monday, June 10, at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival.

The new shortform series, spearheaded by Pete Browngardt (creator of Uncle Grandpa), promises a return to “cartoonist-driven” filmmaking, the approach that was used on the classic Looney Tunes shorts made between the 1930s-1950s. It’s the first time in nearly 60 years that Warner Bros. is using this approach in an extensive way for its Looney Tunes program. In the cartoonist-driven approach, artists come up with everything from the premise though the gags and story, and the finished cartoons may reflect the individual cartooning styles and personalities of the artists who are making them.

The first “season” of the new Looney Tunes shorts will be comprised of 1,000 minutes of animation, with each short varying from one to six minutes in length. WB intends to distribute the shorts across multiple platforms including digital, mobile, and broadcast.

Did you hear the joke about the comedian who (allegedly) stole another comedian’s joke? Ask Alex Kaseberg, who claims Conan O’Brien committed joke theft by stealing bits about Caitlyn Jenner, Tom Brady, and the Washington Monument.

The bigger story is that joke theft is no joke, pun very much intended. At issue is copyright infringement, intellectual property, damages, and a look at how the Hollywood-industrial complex works.

These questions raise the question: If joke theft is an act of copyright infringement, will celebrity comics have to change their acts? The process of writing a joke would then be no different than writing a term paper: a footnote for every line, a fee for every punchline, a royalty for every repeat.

Another question is how this would affect cartoonists. I don’t see how this would work with current events. Would the first one out with the idea that becomes the famous Cartoon Yahtzee receive royalties from the others?Forbes reports.

Copyright-ness

A judge praises the “highly creative” nature of “Oh, the Places You’ll Boldly Go!” and doesn’t see sufficient evidence that the book will harm Dr. Seuss’ position in the children’s book market.

Almost a year ago, ComicMix beat back trademark claims over a crowdfunded book project titled Oh, the Places You’ll Boldly Go! In that decision, the judge referenced a 1986 Federico Fellini film and the Fox hip-hop drama Empire before coming to the conclusion that the work in controversy wasn’t explicitly misleading about its association with the company that owns Dr. Seuss rights.

Now comes the follow-up summary judgment ruling on the copyright end, with U.S. District Judge Janis Sammartino invoking a hot dispute over the use of computer code, the promotional poster to Naked Gun 33?: The Final Insult and viral videos. Ultimately, the judge is convinced that Oh, the Places You’ll Boldly Go! makes fair use of Dr. Seuss’ Oh, the Places You’ll Go.

Comic Cameo
Hundreds of auction items — from chef-prepared backyard cookouts to an Indy car ride around the Detroit Grand Prix race course – are going to help kids who play in a Huntington Woods park.
Shade is in short supply during the warm months at the Burton Community Park in Huntington Woods and the city’s Men’s Club wants to help visitors beat the heat.

Resident Jef Mallet is a nationally syndicated cartoonist and has made a intriguing donation for the auction, Cooper said.“The winning bidder will be written into the comic strip with their name and likeness,” he said. “Jef will also give the winner the pencil draft of the strip” the winner appears in.Details.

NEWspaper
BuzzFeed published a newspaper.NiemanLab reports.
But did it have a comics page?

In 1976, Zippy began to appear in about 50 alternative weekly newspapers–syndicated only by me. From ’76 to ’85, Zippy was a weekly strip that I syndicated alone. In 1985, the San Francisco Examiner, a daily Hearst paper, was given over to a new generation. Will Hearst III called me into his office and offered that I do a strip for the paper. I thought he meant weekly. No, he wanted daily. That was a huge shock. I remember telling him that I’d have to think about it. I came back with a proposal for six months of backlog, running my weekly archives daily to help give me time to get into the flow of doing new material. He agreed so there I was in 1985.

Then, in 1986, one of the vice presidents at King Features came down to visit me in San Francisco and proposed that King Features take on Zippy as a daily comic strip. Once again, I was very surprised. This was not something I’d sought. Right away, I didn’t think the material was going to work around the country in places like Kansas City. King Features said to let them worry about that. I thought I’d try to kill the deal by asking for a lot more money than I’d been getting from the Examiner and King Features agreed instantly. They agreed to not censor me too. Suddenly, I was in New York signing a contract and trying to show salesmen how to sell Zippy. A couple of them got it and the rest looked like they wanted to be somewhere else.

And I’m doing a third one now…It’s another biography. This time it’s of Ernie Bushmiller, the cartoonist who created the Nancy comic strip. It’s as much about him as it is about the world in which he operated, the late teens and early ’20s into the late ’70s and early ’80s. The world of newspaper comic strips, especially within the various New York newspapers.

Cartoonist Tom Scott Has Left the Building

Where Bill Griffith has immersed himself in comics, Tom Scott has bailed on the daily deadline to devote himself only to his new project.

Scott’s take on the state of New Zealand politics and the movers and shakers down the corridors of power has spanned almost five decades.

In amongst the daily satire offered up to newspaper readers, Scott’s creative output has been prolific.

“Tom has been a cartooning force in New Zealand. He has shone a spotlight on social issues, politics, his heroes and the underdogs. Bans from covering parliament didn’t stop him.”

His work for The Evening Post and The Dominion Post was legendary.

“He is without doubt the most talented cartoonist we have ever seen.“

Now Tom Scott is drawing himself out of the picture of daily newspaper satire to write a book.

[A] literary franchise that includes not just books translated into 30 languages, but merchandising and movies as well.

He was in Time magazine’s list of The World’s Most Influential People in 2009, listed as the third highest-paid author in Forbes’ 2017 list — at $21 million, and had lunches with US presidents.

For readers of about seven-plus, Jeff Kinney’s debut Diary of A Wimpy Kid was a stand-out star, offering belly-busting hilarity and a loving, light touch take on tweenage anxiety of funny little oddity Greg Heffley. For the adults it was reminder of what it was like to be a kid. A decade and a dozen books later, Kinney, who has carved out his own distinctive niche in a rich and varied landscape of children’s books, remains a permanent fixture on bestseller charts.

It caused quite a stir a couple of years ago when the entirety of the original artwork to AMAZING FANTASY #15, containing the very first Spider-Man story, was anonymously donated to the Library of Congress. The art was among the earliest to go missing from Marvel’s warehouse back in the late 1970s/early 1980s and nobody had seen any sign of it until this donation was made. The question of who had the artwork all this time and why they chose now to make this donation.

I don’t really want to get into the question of who donated the artwork here. Rather, the fact that the art exists in such a publicly-accessible forum gives us the opportunity to study it more closely and see what secrets we might unlock about the creation of this story.

I’m often asked what the trends are with editorial cartooning, and my rare cartoon in my local newspaper led to this long-winded answer. We will continue to see newspapers dropping their editorial pages, sometimes dropping only two pages per week, and sometimes dropping the editorial pages entirely. I’m told that editorial pages make readers angry, and papers don’t sell advertising on the editorial page, so editorial pages can be viewed as a costly hassle. Editorial cartoons will continue to lose their newspaper homes.

Beyond the physical caricature that is shocking in any publication in the year 2019, the woman is portrayed as ignorant and stupid, the familiar insult by white racists towards people of color and often women. Worse, the cartoonist, Dana Summers, is including the title “Green Book” in his cartoon.

We regret publishing this cartoon, and we apologize to our readers for placing it in our pages.

Although we interpreted the column as a criticism of the FBI for its reported consideration of a plot to use the 25th Amendment to remove Donald Trump — a figurative stab in the back — readers contacted us with concerns that it promoted violence against Trump.

The latest film touting the value of the free press is Joseph Pulitzer: Voice of the People, narrated by BlacKkKlansman co-star Adam Driver. Besides upholding the patrimony of print publishing at a critical time, Voice defends the heritage of America’s immigrants—who are, like journalists, targets of the Trump regime. And as crimes motivated by anti-Semitism are on the rise in Trump’s USA, Oren Rudavsky’s biopic reminds us of the Jewish contribution to America.

For my non-attorney readers, a strategic lawsuit against public participation — aka SLAPP — is a lawsuit that may potentially censor, intimidate and silence critics by burdening them with heavy legal costs until they abandon their criticism or opposition.

To remedy this behavior, many jurisdictions have passed so-called anti-SLAPP statutes as a mechanism that could potentially dismiss such strategic lawsuits. Anti-SLAPP statutes established a new procedural tool in the form of a “special” motion to strike, effectively reversing the standard burdens of proof at a very early stage of the litigation, requiring the plaintiff to all but prove their case at the outset. The boldest component of these laws makes it mandatory for the court to award a prevailing defendant his or her attorney’s fees.

Basically SLAPP refers to corporations suing those who it wishes to silence, anti-SLAPP gives those intimidated to halt the SLAPP suit until a court decides if it is a reasonable action. If the SLAPP is ruled unreasonable the intimidated gets the intimidator to pay their legal fees.

If I understand right, and I may not, Ted Rall’s position is that the L.A.Times has turned this law on it’s head and is using it to silence Rall.

Lower courts have ruled for the L.A.Times leaving Ted responsible for hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees incurred by The Times.

Whether journalists in California will keep basic employment protections and whether libel will remain actionable are now important issues in the hands of the California state Supreme Court. We filed our Petition to Review with the court yesterday. Please read it here. It’s a good primer about an important case. And please wish me luck. I need it!

In support of Ted Rall’s case, and editorial cartoonists in general, a few organizations have filed an Amicus Letter/Friend of the Court letter to the California Supreme Court.

The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists notes that “Rall is seeking to have the ruling set aside so that he may continue his lawsuit against the LA Times for wrongful termination and defamation, after he was fired as a contributor by the newspaper in 2015.” The Times anti-SLAPP suit has effectively ended the original lawsuit.

The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists (AAEC) is a professional association dedicated to the promotion and preservation of the political cartoon. The mission of the AAEC is to champion and defend editorial cartooning and free speech as essential to liberty in the United States and throughout the world. It is the world’s largest organization of political cartoonists…

In light of our mission, the AAEC would like to express its dismay over the handling of Ted Rall’s case by the California court system. We urge the court to consider the downstream effects of a harsh ruling in this case.

Rall is a political cartoonist. Cartoonists live and work on the cutting edge of free speech. We are disproportionately targets of ire, often for bringing up discomforting topics and pointing out unpleasant truths, which is the very nature of satire. This ire sometimes comes from the general public, but most often it comes from the targets of the cartoon commentary, and takes a variety of forms…

It’s regrettable, and perhaps not the intention of the court, but the harsh treatment of Rall sends a message to political cartoonists of all stripes. The overly punitive application of the SLAPP laws in this case will financially ruin a cartoonist and this will have a lamentable chilling effect. As a fierce defender of First Amendment rights the AAEC sincerely hopes the court will consider what sort of message it’s sending. Cartoonists face many different kinds of threats and challenges these days. We hope the California Supreme Court won’t be adding to them.

Cartoonists Rights Network International (CRNI) is a human rights organization working in defense of editorial, political and other cartoonists whose work leads to direct threats against their life, limb or livelihood. Often this involves cartoonists from oppressive theocracies where blasphemy or mere disrespect is a matter of grave consequence. Far more common, however, are instances where cartoonists suffer abuse inflicted with the instruments of authoritarian regimes: the military or police, party loyalists, unduly censorious statutes or heavy-handed legal action. In recent years the cases we champion have been largely in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Central & South America.

[This case] alarms us first and foremost because of how similar certain aspects appear to those of others we have followed in locations such as Turkey, Malaysia or Equatorial Guinea. In each of these places a cartoonist has been the recipient of our annual Courage in Editorial Cartooning Award after being subjected to campaigns of intimidation and harassment from police, generally based on fabricated or exaggerated evidence.

Of course we recognize that Mr Rall’s case differs in the scale and gravity of the alleged criminality at its heart, (neither jaywalking nor the allegedly exaggerated blog post are acts of sedition) but the intent and effect of the ensuing events have produced alarmingly similar results. That a freelance cartoonist could be expected to pay the legal fees of one of the country’s largest and most powerful news outlets seems an injustice so skewed as to be clearly intimidating to other writers and artists. That the incident involves the police could be construed as a further warning against challenging the authorities. Those in positions of power have seized upon an opportunity to silence a critic and serious, perhaps irreparable, damage has been done to the career of a popular and acclaimed cartoonist…

An editorial cartoon is not a bald statement of fact; it is an opinion piece. Nonetheless humor falls flat without veracity. Thus we look to cartoonists not for nuanced analysis of any particular policy but to reveal greater truths. It is for this reason that those in power have cause to fear them. Like virtually no other profession, the cartoonist makes it their business to remind the citizenry that the emperor is wearing no clothes.

Meet The Queen’s Cartoonists, a New York jazz band bringing back cartoon music.

As I watched The Queen’s Cartoonists slip and slide through decades of cartoon music in a matter of minutes, with the animations projected on a large screen behind them, I followed a captivated crowd of young and old consciously connect what they were watching with what they were hearing. The pleasure of the perfect synchrony of sound and pictures was instantly recognizable.

“At the start, we just performed this cool swing music used in cartoons,” [Joel] Pierson says. “Now the emphasis has changed to, ‘look at this cartoon and we’ll play the soundtrack.’ It’s become more visual.” While the projections are the most important aesthetic aspect of the show, Pierson admits they really try to put the looney in their tunes with each band member performing pretty complex circus numbers and tricks.

Griffith is a champion of the overlooked and the out of place, and also an outstanding researcher…This kindhearted and thoroughly interesting tribute to the man who inspired Griffith’s Zippy is also a history of 20th-century American culture and social mores.

In honor of the 50th anniversary of the 1969 Woodstock festival this summer, the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center presents a yearlong exhibition celebrating the smallest Peanuts character, Woodstock, named for the generation-defining music event. Opening March 17, 2019, and on view through March 8, 2020, Peace, Love, and Woodstock provides a rich snapshot of the landmark festival while tracing the evolution and life of Snoopy’s most trusted friend.

Though birds appeared early in Peanuts, it was not until 1967 when a distinct little bird began to appear more frequently in the comic strip, capturing hearts and inspiring laughs with his unique personality and eccentric ways. In a strip from June 22, 1970, his name was finally revealed.

The runaway top lot of the sale was a pen and ink drawing of the Marx Brothers by famed cartoonist Al Hirschfeld. The illustration for the cover of Why a Duck?, 1971, which features Chico, Harpo and Groucho in classic Hirschfeld style, barreled through its high estimate of $7,500 selling for $26,000 after a bidding war.

Humor is highly subjective; however, there is one metric which is hard to deny: winning the New Yorker Cartoon Caption contest. That indicates that at least once, you were quantifiably funny. But to win it SEVEN times? Now, that sounds like solid proof.

I had a chance to chat with Larry Wood, the seven-time New Yorker Caption Contest winner last month at the Cartoon Collections launch party. A tall, unimposing sort, Larry fit right in with the crew of cartoonists who’d gathered for the festivities. He’s smart, charming and quietly amusing, much like the rest of the gang.

Perhaps nowhere is this ageism more visible than in commentary surrounding the new Nancy comic strip. If you like it, great. But if you don’t, prepare to receive the absolute sickest of burns: “You are old.” Originated by Ernie Bushmiller in 1938, Nancy was recently revived by a cartoonist using the pseudonym “Olivia Jaimes.” I like most of Jaimes’s new daily and Sunday strips a lot. Others are solid, a few are bland, some are repetitive (too many cell phone gags), and some I just don’t get (likely ’cause I’m old). If you think the new Nancy is, like her pal Sluggo, “lit,” I’m perfectly ok with that (and if you haven’t read the comic, I recommend it). If you hate it and think it was only good when Bushmiller did it, I’m fine with that, too. I might have some trouble with anyone who thinks Guy Gilchrist is the best Nancy cartoonist. But even then, whatever.

January 17th, Popeye’s actual birthday, saw the return of this lovely inclusive tradition on Comics Kingdom, which, in 2019, expands considerably on Segar’s intent by allowing artists in 2019 a forum for presenting their own contemporary takes on Popeye’s representation.